Mobile Page Speed, SEO and AMP

You may have heard about it, but Google announced yesterday that:
"starting in July 2018, page speed will be a ranking factor for mobile searches."
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/01/using-page-speed-in-mobile-search.html

So how does this affect Mobile Search Engine Optimisation?
Well... Firstly don't panic. Website speed is already a ranking signal for desktop search and following yesterday's announcement this signal will now come into effect for mobile sites in July.
So even though Google is almost certainly tracking page speed already, it will not have an effect in the SERPs until later this year, so you do have 6 months to make changes to your site.

How does this affect AMP?
The Accelerated Mobile Pages Project (AMP) is an open-source initiative to improve the performance of web content on mobile devices. They are useful lightweight versions of your web pages that are hosted elsewhere (not on your own website) for speed, which in-turn improves their changes of being downloaded and read. However there is no direct link (yet) between Google's mobile organic rankings and AMP, plus there is no organic site penalty for not having it.
But even though the two things are separate, they can work together to get more website traffic and therefore conversions. This is because AMP can have their content displayed in a carousel at the top of the Search Engine Results SERPs. And therefore, even without PPC AdWords appearing, both AMP and organic search ranking of pages can push your content to the top of the search results in your mobile browser.
Note: We are also seeing the content/layout and even the appearance of this carousel change in the SERPS over time and location, so its display there should not be guaranteed.

What can I do about it?
Therefore we recommend to all clients and the wider online community that:

• Site owners minimise all page weight wherever possible (e.g. reduce the use of scrips and keep images to the lowest size possible - one client website has a strict policy that no image must be greater than 200k)
• AMP is considered a technology on websites that have content that does not dynamically change all the time (e.g. it is not advisable for eCommerce or fast-moving information sites).
• If you are in doubt... ask your SEO consultant.

Android & iOS Have 99.6% Of All Smartphone Sales

Figures published this week from Gartner show that in the last quarter of 2016 the two major smartphone operating systems of Apple's iOS and Google's Android made up 99.6% of all global smartphone sales.

Android shipped 352,669.9 units, making that 81.7% of the market
iOS shipped 77,038.9 units, making that 17.9% of the market

Yup, that's correct. The remaining operating systems, which include Windows, Blackberry and others made up just 0.4% of all smartphone sales in the last 3 months of 2016.

Who Invented The Hamburger Icon?

The hamburger icon is now a part of our online mobile experience. It sits there in the top left-hand corner of our small screen devices acting as the gateway to a number of other services & functions.

By its very presence we are reassured that additional things lie behind our current view and that they will be exposed by a single tap. In short... the hamburger icon is a simple universally understood metaphor for displaying further menus & navigation.

So how did we come to this collective understanding? Who originally thought that three horizontal lines was a sufficient way of depicting the menu behind it?

I think that whoever invented the hamburger icon deserves praise for creating something so simple and yet so useful. 

What Users Find Most Valuable About Apps

Google have just released a useful report on the adoption and usage of mobile apps.

Named "How people discover, use, and stay engaged with apps" the document is a helpful resource for those who are looking to develop or improve their apps.

There's some good insight included, such as whether price or privacy are most important when deciding whether to install an app. And that the average number of apps that users have installed on their smartphone is 35.

But perhaps the most important finding concerned what users find most valuable about their favourite apps... and the perhaps unsurprising finding is that they rate usability highest. Yup, the fact that they’re easy to use and navigate makes users love apps the most.

Read the full Google report here

Google Mobile Friendly Test Site Revamp

It is good to see that the useful Mobile website friendliness testing tool from Google has had a bit of a face-lift.

I wonder if the functionality, to check just how compatible a website is for mobile compatibility, has also changed....

Try it for yourself:
https://testmysite.withgoogle.com/intl/en-gb/

 

Why does Google Analytics show cities not postcodes?

As you may have seen in Google Analytics, it is possible to identify your digital visitors down to the city level. This is cleverly done by Google taking multiple data sources and then "guessing" where visitors are coming from.

Firstly there is something called reverse IP address lookup. This is when your Internet Service Provider gives information away about where you are connecting from. Then there's other big hints online users give away about their location, such as using a Chrome Browser on a mobile device or use Google Maps to look at their local vicinity. Each gives Google major indications as to where users actually are.

But this "guessing" does not go down to postcode level in Google Analytics.

My view is that some postcode area (e.g. PA = Paisley) are so broad they cover hundreds & hundreds of square miles and even postcode districts cover large amounts of land & people (e.g. PA1).

However postcodes themselves change over time can be so detailed as to cover as little as one house.... which would identify a person or household, which is against Google's data policy.

Showrooming or Web-rooming?

Physical retailers have been suffering at the hands of eCommere for years. The ability to browser and buy from the comfort of your own sofa (or bed) has been a growing and compelling proposition, especially compared to the madness of Christmas or sale times.

And now, thanks to in-store Internet connectivity and smartphones online shopping continues to grow at the expense of in-store retail. Consumers are increasingly using their mobile devices (mobile phones, phablets and even tablets) in stores to: get product information, check competitive prices and obtain feedback from reviews & social media contacts. They are therefore using the in-store experience to 'showroom' by looking at, touching and even experiencing a range of products only to then convert online.

However this is only part of the story, as the reverse experience is also true. In a recent PWC survey, 70% of the respondents stated that they started the purchase process online, but converted in-store.

This process, now know as “web-rooming" is a growing trend that has benefited from the factors such as:

• a focus by retailers on an improved in-store experience 
• better staff training, to help customers purchase rather than put them off 
• better and immediate stock availability 

The graph below, taken from the report, outlines the specific reasons why the respondents prefer to buy products in-store instead of online:

UK is now mobile first

Smartphones have now taken over as the preferred device for going online in the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33777168

Yes, for the first time the phone has become the device of choice, overtaking the laptop as the primary means of connecting to. Meaning that the UK has joined a select list of countries that are mobile first.

Once regarded as the 'second screen', mobile is now the main screen for a lot of users. They don't use a desktop or laptop as their principle device and sometimes use their smartphone... they consume content and use online functionality on their phone by default. Your customer now expects to connect to whatever they want, wherever and whenever they want.

And yet still so many companies are catching up. They have either got no mobile compatible presence or have a very poor one. And some have just mobile optimised their campaign landing pages, but not the rest of the customer experience (perhaps hoping that the user will be so surprised that the landing page worked correctly on their phone, they would forgive the company for a poor subsequent experience).

Is this as a result of a lack of foresight, poor investment, slow development or just plain ignorance? 

eCommerce Must Put Mobile First

In my mind there's no doubt that the main device to design a company experience for (both now and in the near future) is the smartphone.... especially as far is eCommerce is concerned. This is what Forrester calls "The Mobile Mind Shift" - the customer need to browse, buy and engage with a retailer vie their device of choice. And these days this is typically their mobile phone.

Consumers are increasingly demanding online experiences that work on any device at any time.  But with smartphone decision making and purchasing on the increase... the mobile web must now be the primary concern of any retailer. 

It's my observations that:

• Regardless of where the customer is (at home, at work, on the go, in a store, etc.) they use their smartphone to shop. Sure, they may still use a tablet or desktop & laptop PC, but the mobile is what they have immediately to-hand... literally.
• The customer is often either cautious about downloading retailer apps or doesn't update them often when they have them. This is different for essential apps they my use day-to-day (e.g. Social Media platforms) which preoccupy their mobile time.

So where does this leave a retailer that doesn't deliver a site that works correctly on the small screen?

Lagging behind.

Google Wallet or Apple Pay - the UK is waiting

I moved away from using Apple and the iTunes ecosystem a year & a half ago and I went back to Android. I thought the devices and flexibility offered by Google's open operating system and Play Store was a better choice than the locked down offering from Cupertino. 

The only thing the whole Google ecosystem was missing in the UK was a decent mobile payment solution. It's been a gap in the British eCommerce chain since the retirement of Google's Checkout product was announced 18 moths ago and Google Wallet was described as the successor.
But since then we have been teased and tantalised.

According to the Google Wallet website:

"Google Wallet is an easier way to pay in stores, pay your friends and pay online.
Shop in stores with all your loyalty, offers and gift cards in one place. Send money to friends and they can spend it instantly with the Google Wallet Card."

But I'm still waiting for Google's payment offering to extend beyond North America.

So, with the recent announcement of Apple Pay, I have to admit I felt a twinge of jealousy... 

as it looked like UK Apple users were going to get a mobile payment system before UK Google users. But it looks like this could be another year away, despite Steve Perry, Chief Digital Officer of Visa Europe, going on record as stating  "We are working closely with Apple and with other member banks to bring this new service to market in Europe."

In short.. neither payment service looks like they will step out out of their comfort zone (the USA) for some while... despite other services such as Zapp, Pingit (by Barclays), PayPal and others marching forward.

Or maybe that's both Apple & Google's strategy... To see which product or vendor looks like winning out in Europe and further afield... then to swoop down and buy them.

British consumers spend more online

According to respondents to The 2014 Parcel Deliveries Usage and Attitude Survey carried out by consumer delivery specialist Hermes, British consumers are now spending substantially more online than those in France and Germany.

Apparently twice as many Brits (27%) have shopped online in the last three months compared to the French (14%) and the Germans (10%).

This confidence in online retailing is also refelected in a greater proportion of each nation planning to use eCommerce channels next year than they did this year. With 42% of British consumers now planning to shop online over the next 10 months compared to 30% of French and 28% of Germans consumers.

One of the more facinating insights in the report is that us British customers are using mobile devices far more to buy items online... 23% compared to 9% and 11% for French and Germans respectively.

However, the most interesting fact from an International eCommerce perspective (something that I've been increasingly focusing on for my own consulting clients) is that home-grown sites are doing a Stirling (pun intended) job of attracting foreign custom, with over a third of German and French shoppers stating they have now bought from a UK online retailer... even beating American and Chinese sites to claim the top spot.

More information is available here:
https://www.hermesworld.com/en/press/press_releases/pm-detail-hermes-ltd-uk_27136.html

Subaru mobile website is roofless

With mobile web usage rocketing and more and more potential customers looking to inform their purchase online... you'd think that Subaru would get their website working correctly.

However this landing page for the new Subaru Impreza not only gives a poor layout, but also manages to only partially display the actual vehicle. In fact, the top half of the car is completely hidden from view and gives an overall poor experience to users looking to find out more on their smartphones.

Never bet against Google in 2014

Over the last dozen years Google has grown to be one of the most dominant online players, perhaps the biggest. Its current market value is about $350bn and all signs are that it can continue ruling the online space, despite several factors, including:

1.  More and more people using mobile devices for their daily searching and browsing activity
2.  Increased competition from Microsoft’s Bing.com search engine (which has blatantly tried to copy Google’s model and put a lot of money behind it’s promotion)
3. A list of discontinued products that have surprised on-lookers and left some users high & dry (e.g. Google Apps: closed in early 2012 and Google Reader: a feed-based news aggregator which was dropped in July 2013)

However despite Google’s mantra of “Don’t be evil”, which tries to set it apart from the more traditional software and IT services companies... it’s sheer size and might means it can’t help but disrupt any market or segment it decides to move into. From mobile phone operating systems & devices, to the Chrome operating system and a web-based email service (that became the top provider about a year ago) Google continues an upward trajectory. The consequence of this is that it is probably the only company able to challenge Apple in some areas of consumer electronics and communications.

What this means is that betting against Google in anything it decides to do is an unwise move. So if it targets any market or products that your company is in over the next year or so… my advice is, get out.

Customer Services on Twitter need what?

In a recent rant on Twitter about my mobile phone broadband, I got a response from EE the mobile phone & data network provider. However the response I got wasn't what I expected and this raised a couple of questions in my mind:

1. Why do I need to contact them directly and provide my full name, in order for a company to investigate what was a technical or process issue?
2. Surely by looking at my Twitter account they can see what my name is (and a quick look at my profile will validate this)?

I'm sure EE has it's own reasons for this Twitter Customer Services policy. But I did find it slightly strange that EE want that level of contact and can't be bothered to look up basic publicly-facing information on people.

Samsung Galaxy S4 launch date announced

So a date has been announced for what is anticipated to be one of the biggest tech product launches of 2013.

The 14th March is now officially the date that Samsung has set for the launch of its new smartphone, predicted to be called the S4.
Note: the use of the number '4' in the image below strongly hints at a move away from the potential use of Roman Numerals for this product's name.

So at 19:00 on the 14th (or midnight GMT over here in the UK) we will finally see what is expected to be a further strengthening of the Korean tech giant's position against Apple.

On a personal note I am really looking forward to seeing what Samsung has up its sleeves. I'm hoping is a powerful personal computing device that is still small enough to fit in my pocket, but that still works well as a phone. I think it's almost certainly going to use Google's Android operating system and have a clear & high resolution screen, to take it way beyond the iPhone5.

In just over 2 weeks we shall find out.

Mobile emails: a bad example

Following on from my posting a few days ago on making abandoned basket emails mobile compatible... I thought I'd share a bad example of what I was trying to explain.

Above is a screen grab from my iPhone. Although this isn't specifically an abandoned basket email, it does show how not to send out a marketing email that may well be read on handheld devices these days.

Note the huge image at the top of the body of this message. This image does not display by default, therefore showing nothing on my screen until I scroll down.

Hardly a great user experience eh?

Abandoned basket emails... one thing I forgot

Isn't it always the way? You write a nice long posting on a specific subject, giving some useful tips along the way.... and then once it's written and published you remember something else that will be obvious to your readers.

Well, it's happened to me (again) with my latest opinion piece on optimising Abandoned basket emails. As it was only after I listed out my 6 suggestions for improving these emails and committed it to publish last night, that I realised I'd missed and obvious one.

So as well as: Experiment with subject lines, Experiment with the time of sending, Send more than one email, Use your email service provider, Experiment with layout, imagery & palette and Track links... I forgot to include "make sure your email is mobile compatible".

You see that although a lot of people just shop on their PC's and tablets, with mobile eCommerce lagging a little way behind.... they still carry their mobile with them. So if you're going to send an email reminder to them several hours later, to let them know they have left an item or two in their online shopping basket, there's a good chance they are out and about, or at least not in front of their main terminal. So if you want them to read that email and then go on to buy the product(s) you need to make it as compatible as possible for all devices.

Why I want the Samsung Galaxy S4

It may seem strange to readers that I'm looking forward to the launch of a mobile phone that hasn't even been announced yet. But yes... I admit it, I'm eagerly awaiting the launch of the new Samsung flagship phone, the Galaxy S4 despite it not even being announced yet.

You see... I currently have an iPhone 4S that I've had since the end of 2011 (so only 14 months in reality). But, several weeks ago the power button broke on it, just a few days after its 12 month warranty period had passed. Despite a trip to my friendly local Apple store, the annoying news was that a fix required a replacement phone, which would cost me £130 (just a few weeks before Christmas).
Not willing to trade the kids presents in for a replacement mobile, I now I have a leading smart phone with one major issue: turning it off and on is no longer a feature.

So now I really want a new phone and to be honest, I want an Android handset again. In fact, I missed having an Android handset the day I took delivery of my iPhone 4S. And I missed it even more when I dropped the bloody Apple product in the first week of ownership and shattered its glass rear. Normal glass, the type that breaks into a million child-unfriendly pieces and makes a lovey crunching noise when you then go an buy a cover to put over it. Glass people. GLASS FFS !

Could I go and get myself a Samsung Galaxy S3? Or is that a Galaxy SIII? I'm not so sure Roman Numerals really look good on a modern communication device... which in that case would make the phone I now want the "SIV" (and I'm pretty sure that could be pronounced "sieve").
Sure I could! But now I'm pretty sure the S4 is due to be announced pretty shortly and made available not long after that.... and I want one!

I was teased even further last week when Samsung unveiled a flexible, foldable smart phone prototype at the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jim6l2jRGQw&feature=youtu.be
But even seeing a folding LED screen due out in a couple of years couldn't abate my desire for the new Android S4.

Are we about to have a battle of the tablets?

One in four US adults now owns a tablet computer, and two-thirds of those who own a tablet purchased them in the last year. These figures, despite being quite recent, don;t take into consideration the recent launches of the iPad Mini as well as the new Kindle devices (which now makes my slightly older Kindle look very out of date) and other Android devices...... let alone this month's Microsoft Surface launch
This means that the ubiquitous iPad does now have some serious competition in the tablet market and therefore this leads to an overall increase in tablet ownership.

The above diagram, provide by The Economist & Pew Research shows just how much the market has changed in one year.
http://www.economistgroup.com/leanback/lean-back-reading/pew-tablets-users/

In my opinion there's a battle coming. One that will be fought in full view of all of us (and most will get caught in the crossfire). The war over mobile commerce.... which is set to explode over the next few years.

Don't believe me?
Well Business Insider do, as they have predicted several mobile commerce trends over the next few years.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/bii-report-why-mobile-commerce-is-set-to-explode-2012-11 

Their predictions pretty-much reflect a lot of my own thoughts:

1. Mobile commerce is getting bigger and bigger
2. Mobile payments will fuel this growth
3. Tablet growth will drive up this usage even further
4. The SoMoLo 'holy trinity' of Social Mobile & Local will be attractive to marketers (although specifically how they will take advantage of this, I'm not sure yet)

Therefore those companies who manage to take as much of the tablet now, will be in a position to commercially make the most from it in the next few years.

rebuilding the new Ideal Interface website

The old Ideal Interface company website had been up for about 3 years and was looking  a little dated. Not only was it out of date from a content perspective (as well as having our old London address & details, it contained references to an association with a parent company that has now folded) . On top of this, the CMS we had used required upgrading and given that the site was only a small, I thought a blogging platform was more suitable. Oh.... it also wasn't mobile compatible, which I see as a must in the current online world.

I therefore made the decision last week to redevelop the site, but this time using the Wordpress blogging platform.... The site's main purpose is to house a small amount of content based around our central proposition of eCommerce and Digital Marketing consulting, so I thought a blog was the ideal vehicle going forward. But here was the challenge I set myself...... get it done for no charge (except my time).

The first issue I had was exporting the content from our current content management system (Drupal) to our new one. Despite looking at several ways to do this automatically, I eventually settled for a 'copy and paste' approach. This actually turned out to be quite time efficient, given that Wordpress accepted most of the formatting from the old CMS.

The second one was migrating the domain across. You see the forwarding of our company email addresses is managed via one domain name provider, but migrating the DNS across meant losing this forwarding (which was not available in Wordpress as far as I could see).
Note: I only found out about the lack of forwarding by stopping the company email addresses for a period of a few hours. Luckily these were saved by our DNS ISP and eventually came through. Ooops!
The remedy to this issue was to give the website a subdomain and eventually I settled on http://blog.idealinterface.co.uk
However, Wordpress did charge me for the mapping of this subdomain, at a cost of about £9.

So now, we have a new site. One that has the same content, is updated using the Wordpress app on my iPhone and works incredibly well on mobile devices. I'm not 100% sure I like the template used on the PC version and I need to include the logo in there ASAP. But for just a very small outlay I can upgrade this template to a premium one or get one developed that I like.

Let's see how it fares.... especially as the domain has now changed and this may affect our SEO rankings.